HARDMAN HOLIDAY NEWS

For more photos click on the Flickr cloud to the right....

Most years I vowed to start the Christmas letter early or to keep track of major events all year and so to post this primary-source, family history but this year I didn’t even try.
In January Rick and I went to Singapore and then cruised around Australia and New Zealand. We traveled 5 weeks—a trip made possible by friends who helped with house, mail and cat tending.
The photo above was taken looking down from the top of the monument at Borobodur while the next photo is from the paper factory and museum in Burnie, Australia.

Next is of a farmer works his field in Bali.



























While we were home in the summer Rick and I (mostly Rick) worked on doors— 4 of them. My favorite is the door to the basement studios. Rick repaired a door rescued from a trash pile and we installed my handmade sunflower tiles in place of the glass. As part of the door project I meant to paint the front door green but all I managed was to leave the can of primer in the front hall for 2 months. Maybe in the spring









The other big event this summer was our garden. Rick a rototilled the sand and compost into a nice mix and I planted snow peas, tomatoes, broccoli, garlic, pumpkins, squash, strawberries and rhubarb.


The rhubarb & pumpkins took over the land. I planned on strawberry rhubarb crisp for Rick but there were few strawberries (next year will be great) so looked toward apples but we didn’t get a single apple this year from a tree that generally had bushels to share.
The radishes were round and spicy; the carrots short and sweet and the lettuce grew faster than we could chew. One gourd seed from the compost germinated and gave us about 50 gourds but the tomatoes rotted for us as they did for most.

The broccoli produced until after snowfall. We’re making the garden larger next year and planting okra and more things that appeal to Rick so that means fewer zucchini.

While our tomatoes rotted we went to the Baltic States on a cruise. This photo is part of the city wall in Tallin, Estonia.








I spent Halloween in Boston with Emilie and Josh. Em was a speaker at the Boston Vegetarian Society Food Fest. Josh and I helped her serve 400 samples of food to her guests during the event and then we all went out dancing that night.



Jay had several pieces of his work accepted as part of the Fleisher/Ollman Gallery annual group exhibition. “I Don’t Watch the Internet” opened on Dec 10 and runs through January 16. Rick and I are going after Christmas. a(This is Rick, Me, Miss Dot, and Jay in Philly. Miss Dot is Jay's neighbor and extended family.



Other than that I continue to play flute and make pottery. Rick builds furniture, works on the 1939 Chevy and fixes things I break. The cat purrs; snow falls; fire snaps and one hopes the world comes to value kindness.

My Mother's Singer

My Mother's Sewing Machine
Published in the Patriot and Free Press, Christmas Story Collection 2008

Cold passes through the kitchen windows and floats in a chilly gauze around my shoulders. Periodically I hear the rumbling of a snow plow on the highway with hard tires buzzing and the blade scraping through slush. Dwight’s snow blower growls in one driveway and Rob’s in the other but Rick isn’t clearing snow yet. No rush today.

Chickadees flutter in gray gusts from the feeders to roof and back littering the new snow in bits of seed for field mice to find later.

Inside red bows are splashed on the curtains while nutcrackers and wooden soldiers stand duty on the fireplace mantle. Em’s and Jay’s Kindergarten art projects, now faded construction paper held together with tape and memories, are in place on the doors and there are cookies (I hope not to burn) in the oven. It’s nearly Christmas and that’s when I want to get out fabric and listen to the sound of my mother’s sewing machine.

It’s an old Singer. I remember when she got it in the 1950s. She took a few sewing lessons at the store and modeled her dress in a student fashion show. She was proud and pleased. The machine was a major investment at the time, purchased “on time” and seen as a treasure. Mom said she would make clothes, save money, and be accomplished.

The first dress that I remember her making (55 years ago!) was emerald green with a square neckline and yards of skirt cut on the bias. The fabric was placed on the cleared dining room table, right sides together with pattern pieces carefully cut, pinned, measured on the straight then pinned more. They were cut with no small measure of concern for error. Her stress showed in the tight line of her lips as she snipped carefully on the lines.

The sewing machine later hummed, speeding over basted seams making neat and even stitches.

Eventually I was allowed to use the machine thus making my older brother a nervous wreck. “She’s going too fast,” he’d yell. “She’ll break it.”

My mother seemed unconcerned so I charged ahead with more interest in speed than stitches. Now and then I'd sew a stitch or two into my finger but that was the price of speed and I couldn't admit to any pain if my brother was there.

My own sewing machine was purchased in 1979 and it had lots of extra gizmos – nothing like what one can buy today but cams that could stitch a row of ducks or bring zigzag to new levels of art. Rick and I were looking toward the birth of Emilie so such a machine was sure to have great use and I expected it to be a last extravagance before children consumed our future earnings.

I sewed clothes, quilts and curtains and repaired all kinds of things but the “new” machine never sounded right to me. The plastic gears may be great for fancy stuff but the rows of ducks weren’t as important to me as that sound of smooth, well-oiled metal so when it was time to empty Mom’s house I wanted the sewing machine. I wanted to hear it sew. Precision pieces. Solid parts. Perfect fit.

Jay got interested in fabric sculptures in college so I picked up a used machine for him but working with leather, burlap and canvass he burned through the plastic gears in no time. When I mentioned to Aunt Florence that I was on the lookout for a solid, old machine for Jay she said she had one in her garage.

That sounded crazy to me. Aunt Florence had never sewn much more than a button. How could she have a machine? The answer was in her attitude against waste. When she saw her neighbor put a machine on the curb for trash she asked him to move it to her garage on the chance she’d find an owner for it.

Jay now has a rescued 1931 White in a wood cabinet and as soon as he heard the old parts purr through his work he understood what I was talking about. Solid. Strong. Just great.

December 26, 2008

Josh and Jay help to keep the wood stove going when they are around. It's fun for a couple of days but over the winter it gets a bit dull. Jay had to leave on Friday right after Christmas so the day was empty without him.
















Demetra Messoloras (Emilie's best friend in middle and high school) visited and cooked a delicious Greek dinner on Friday night. Here she and Josh are cooking and then we have Demetra dressing the salad. (I know the text does not line up with the photos but I can't figure how to make it work out right. Very frustrating.)



























Emilie tried to escape the camera but I got her (and her new scarf).






















Josh cooked the eggplant and it tasted super but the skillet was a total mess.

















We found this crazy dragon candle holder at a road side rummage sale in West Virginia in October and brought it home for Josh for a Christmas gift. It reminded us of the dragon they have hanging in their dining room/living room door way. It's a little over the top as a hood ornament but it would be super cool if they did mount it there.






































Emilie carried River downstairs to the car.























River went into the back seat so she could watch people but Oslo went in his carrier in the very back of the car because he travels better with sensory deprivation, so we were told.

2008 Gingerbread house

For 2008 we started with a Victorian house with a tower. It looked a bit rickety before the candy went on but after we dressed it with a chimney with a flowering vine and some gummy bear roofing shingles and a garden out back it looked like a solid dwelling. The cocktail umbrellas gave a lovely bit of whimsey, don't you think? Look, too for Emilie's garden and the purple and orange smoke from the chimney. Jay applied some windows to the tower side and did a gummy bear shingle roof. We have about 2 pounds of gumdrops left over.

2007 Christmas Issue: Christmas Gingerbread Houses

Gingerbread Houses

Christmas at our house means gingerbread house time. We made some simple ones when
the children were little. You know the kind - graham crackers and frosting - but that’s not what we do now. Before everyone comes home, I bake a house.

Rick starts by choosing a house pattern and making cardboard pattern pieces for the walls and roof. Generally I have to double the recipes for gingerbread to make the house but it goes quickly now because I have a method.


I put parchment paper on a baking pan, roll the dough out, cut around the pattern and remove the extra dough. Since I don’t pick anything up, I no longer stretch the rectangles into some frustrating parallelogram or wonky trapezoid.


When they are cool, I glue the pieces together. The first time I glued a house it was without appreciation for the searing temperature of melted sugar. I thought I had to hurry and while hurrying I dripped melted sugar on my hand. It took about two weeks to heal.

Now I wear neoprene gloves and move slowly and carefully. With all the pieces arranged on the kitchen counter and an aluminum foil-covered board at the ready I melt sugar in a large frying pan. Sugar melts into sticky syrup. I dip two sides of a wall into the goo and then place the wall on the board. I know that there’s enough time to move slowly and deliberately.

I worry a little about putting roof on. I have to use a spoon to drip glue on the top of the wall and then place the roof parts. The small pieces of the chimney go on easily and they add style. Often I put a few trees or shrubs or a snowman in the “yard” or pour the sugar/syrup into a “walkway” in front of the door. The sugar glue hardens and the house waits for candy.

At our house all the food we share has to be vegan and that, just a couple of years ago, limited our choices of candies for decoration but now one can get just about anything in a vegan formula so we get pretty darn colorful.

Christmas Eve is decorating time. We get some drinks, turn on the holiday music and put the house on the dining room table surrounding it with bowls of candies. I make lots of frosting for the decorations and we get the kitchen scissors, knives and our fingers very gooey in the process.


Often each of us claims a section of the house and gets to work, a process that means the house looks different from each angle. We cover it with enough candy-tile to make Anton Gaudi jealous and us happy.

As soon as it’s finished it is okay to start eating it but usually the sampling of materials has already made us sick on sugar by then. Our gingerbread house is the best 50,000 calorie project of the year.



Basic Gingerbread House Dough
From recipes.vegansource.com
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 Teaspoon baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 or 3 tsps ground ginger (use a really good quality spice)
1 or 2 tsp ground cinnamon (Vietnamese is my favorite)
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 cup molasses
2 Tbs soymilk, or as needed

In a large bowl stir together flour, baking soda, salt, ginger and cinnamon. (This is the step where our kitchen floor gets messy.)
In a saucepan, combine the shortening, brown sugar, and molasses over low heat.
Stir occasionally until the shortening is melted and the sugar is dissolved,
but still slightly grainy. Remove from the heat and let the mixture cool to lukewarm.
Gradually add the molasses mixture to the dry ingredients, mixing until well blended.
Add enough soymilk to make a firm dough.

Gather the dough into a ball, and cover with plastic wrap.
Let the dough rest for at least 20 minutes. (When tightly sealed, the dough will keep for up to 1 week in the refrigerator. Bring to room temperature before rolling.)
Preheat oven to 325 F. Position rack in the center of the oven.
Use ungreased baking sheets or use parchment paper.
With a lightly floured rolling pin, roll out the dough 1/4" thick, and cut out desired shapes.
Bake until the edges are slightly brown, about 15 minutes.
Makes enough for 1 small gingerbread house (8" x 8").

Gingerbread House Glue*
Pour a layer of sugar about 1" thick in a heavy frying pan.
Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon
until it melts. This makes a quick-hardening, edible glue.
*Caution, this is VERY hot, do not taste or touch!!

Frosting Glue
This frosting works well if made with egg whites but it's okay with water
1/3 cup water (or 3 egg whites)
1/2 t cream of tartar
about a pound of confectioner's sugar
Whip till smooth if you can stand the noise of your mixer.

People tell me that these can be sprayed with a clear finish and saved for years but we nibble on the peanut brittle and chocolate until the house seems less than glorious and then we get serious and eat the gingerbread.